Lessons about sticky communications from Made To Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

bookguide on 22/06/10 city: New-York tags: greatbooks book summary  Comment: 0

In short, this useful book is about six qualities that make ideas stick.. The authors have encapsulated this into the acronym: Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories (SUCCESs). [From the Great Books  Series. Also see The Success Manual  - Encyclopedia of Advice, which contains summaries of 100+ Most useful books.] For an idea to stick, it must make the audience: 1. Pay attention - UNEXPECTED 2. Understand and remember it - CONCRETE 3. Agree / Believe - CREDIBLE ticky 4. Care - EMOTION 5. Be able to act on it - STORY S Expanding the SUCCESs acronym: 1. Simple: Stripping down the idea down to its core, to the most basic elements that make it work. This is the most important decision you have to make. What is the one thing you want people to remember. What is the one thing you want people to do? To make a profound idea compact you've got to pack a lot of meaning into a little bit of messaging. 2. Unexpected: The best ideas represent a break from the everyday, the ordinary, the status quo. Break a pattern. Open a knowledge gap. Pose a question or puzzle. Challenge people to predict an outcome. Use a mystery story 3. Concrete: Do not be abstract. You need to connect a diverse audience to your idea. To get your message across you must be clear. 4. Credible: So far, you have decided on your message, got people’s attention and made memorable. Now you have to get people to believe it. Ideas for building credibility: The self-testable credential. Borrow someone else’s credibility. The anti-authority (stories with real people). Lies, damn lies & statistics. The significant impact of detail. 5. Emotional: Because emotion = action. Give your audience a reason to care about your idea. So, think: Who was the target audience? What emotions would it elicit in that audience? Why would this translate into action? Problem is, People are usually reluctant to spell out the ‘WIIFM’ (What's in it for me?) and Words that have a lot of emotional impact get overused. One shortcut is Piggy-Backing Emotions, building on emotions that your target demographic is already experiencing frequently. Care about the individual - what is pulling his strings? 6. Stories: The more hooks your story has, the more likely it is to stick in your memory As you hear a story, you live it in your own mind... like experience. Use Inspirational Plots: Of all plot types, 3/25 are ‘inspirational’: In the Chicken Soup stories, 80% are ‘inspirational’. In People Magazine, 60% of non-celebrity stories Inspiration leads to action. Permalink

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